Long, Long Way to Go
by Pamplemoussex.x
Summary: "This, he thinks, is his own personal hell that he must relive every day." R/S.


_Long, Long Way to Go_

_**Author's Note: I started writing this a couple of weeks ago, **__**I'm not sure whether this will be a one-shot or part of a chapter story, although I have another chapter typed up. **_

_**Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not own Taggart; the title comes from 'Long, Long Way to Go' by Def Leppard.**_

_He has been having a recurring dream recently, the same dream every night for almost seven weeks and regardless of how many times he may experience it, often he is wholly convinced that it is indeed real. He is standing alone in the club on the evening he first met him lethargically nursing a Vodka and orange whilst feigning interest in the ongoing birthday celebration nearby. The dimly lit room is warm and the thin material of his shirt clings to his slight torso like a second skin, deafeningly loud music blares in his ears and the pounding bass reverberates throughout his entire body until he feels the beat in his very bones. The air is thick and heavy with the scent of stale cigarette smoke and the aroma of cheap perfume, and his eyes fall on him. A part of the group he has arrived with, he is watching him with that curiously endearing smile of his in which one corner of his lip tilts up at a sharp angle causing a tiny dimple to form over his upper lip; it is a look which very much implies that he knows something the other man does not. Perhaps he does the blonde thinks. Looking at him, he sees all over again that he is attractive in a way that may go unnoticed by many with fair skin, wide eyes and a long narrow nose. His hair is deliberately unkempt, a shade that is neither black nor brown in the dim light and brushes his shirt collar in soft waves. His face is long with a defined jaw line, his eyebrows sharp and dark giving him an almost aquiline appearance. The expression he wears is one of amusement and intrigue, and he rather likes that ambiguity. _

_The dark haired man looks back at him for a second longer and then offers him a brief second look, and now he is approaching him easily sidestepping a small group of drunken club-goers. In his dream, Stuart tells himself that he has a chance to stop this, that someone has offered him a second chance to put things straight. Now he has the opportunity to put a stop to the disastrous chain of events before they can begin. _

_But he does not. The taller man stops in front of him and speaks and he smiles and replies. In his dreams he does not understand what they say, their words are little more than a haze their meaning lost after all these years but he knows that they are amusing as he throws his head back and laughs at something that has been said, and then Stuart also laughs. Even now he adores his laugh and the way in which he can see all of his straight white teeth when he does. _

_The conversation flows easily back and forth and as he looks on he can not help but to feel rather helpless as he knows firsthand what will happen to these young men, but he is altogether powerless to stop it. _

_By now he will have introduced himself as Robbie; he is a friend of a friend but they have never been introduced and from their equal looks of surprise he ascertains that they are both disappointed that this is the first time they have met. _

_Statistically, one in five relationships begins in a bar or in a club, and already a relationship is transpiring between them. This is not only noticed by them, but by the birthday guests who nudge one another and talk amongst themselves. He buys Robbie a drink, a Jack Daniels and ice, no mixer he recalls and after a few more rounds he is invited to dance and it is almost compulsory for him to wrap his arms around the older man's waist as they move together on the crowded dance floor. _

_Robbie does not object to their closeness, but rather he seems to relish it. One of his long hands is tangled in Stuart's unruly fair curls whilst the other runs down his side glancing over his pelvic bone and across the front of his jeans and, as his fingers apply a slight pressure, he inhales sharply. His hands continue travelling over his body, running down his hip and over back of his jeans his nimble fingers sliding into the back pocket. He responds by pressing himself harder against him until his groin pushes against the brunette's stomach and, watching this unfold he knows that as he does so he is debating on whether or not he should kiss him. Before he is able to, the brunette leans up and kisses him zealously, their lips and teeth clash painfully but they do not break apart as in a way this adds to the fervency of their first kiss. _

_They pause and Robbie looks down at him and flicks a strand of dark hair from his eyes which reflect the little light there is. He is smiling now, not that vague lopsided smile that first attracted his attention but a wide candid smile. _

_When the club reaches closing time at half past three the following morning Stuart is quick to ask for his number blissfully unaware of the chain of events that he is about to set off. His response is immediate and, using a blue ballpoint pen he has kept in his jacket pocket he writes his mobile phone number on Stuart's slender arm with a drunk's careful, over exaggerated precision. For one long moment he tells himself that he must withdraw his hand and leave him there, but no matter how hard he tries he remains where he is with his right arm outstretched watching as Robbie bites his lower lip and notes down his number. He knows what is going to happen just as he knows it is useless to try and stop it. _

_He knows that Robbie will return with him to his flat where they will drunkenly sleep together and when he wakes up his head aching he will be gone, the only remnants of the brunette and their night together being a trail of purple bite marks on his neck, chest and hips, the smudged hand writing on his forearm and his thin white shirt. He recalls that there will be a large hole on the left shoulder from when Robbie over-enthusiastically tried to remove his top as they stumbled blindly towards his bedroom. _

_He knows they will meet several more times –dinner and drinks, a film, a concert- and each time they will spend the night together, always at his own flat, never Robbie's, just like he knows that in his dream he can not change a thing. Not one single detail._

_This, he thinks, is his own personal hell that he must relive every day. _

**Thank you for reading ^^**


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